


when we have touched

by certainlyjim



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Emotions, Gen, M/M, Movie: Star Trek (2009), Pre-Slash, Spock POV, Touching, basically almost the entirety of stxi through touching, except spock prime Is There Being Sad for a hot minute, jim kirk pov, oh no
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-18 13:55:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28993287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/certainlyjim/pseuds/certainlyjim
Summary: stxi told through jim and spock touches.
Relationships: James T. Kirk/Spock
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	when we have touched

**Author's Note:**

> a/n: a writing exercise wherein i chose to totally ignore Proper Pov Rules (TM), but still tried to make those pov's discernible from each other, without leaning to heavily on a plural pov ie: 'they both...' etc. which imo i failed lmao  
> a/n: a writing exercise as a bit of easy-writing get-away(as in i was lax abt certain things lol) from my other more ''serious''''' works lol

The first time they touch is Spock backhanding Jim across the bridge. A brief and sudden searing of knuckles against sweaty cheek, and then the absence of touch in the quick stirring of air. The lashing forward of Spock's hands harsh and quick and solid like hot metal against Jim’s neck as he bears down over him, bending and bruising over the navigation station. Spock's hand is a vice, feels the quickening shudder of Jim’s racing pulse against his palm and the minute tremors of shifting skin. Grief fueled by cool anger spirals and engulfs, smothers the rearing head of Jim’s emotions trying to be known.

(The very first time they touch is a callous grip at Jim’s neck. The roughness of regulation black against the whirls of finger pads, and the sweaty slickness of fevered human skin against a bruising Vulcan thumb. Spock is in control here; he doesn’t feel the taste of a mind this time.)

(No, the first time they touch is when the Enterprise drops out of warp and everyone on the bridge stumbles at the abrupt lack of momentum. They both grip the guardrails tight, shoulders ducking and weaving and flirting with lurching that the artificial gravity can't fully negate. Their fingers are slivers apart on the guardrail, pinkies white with how hard they are gripping the rail. But Spock isn't paying attention to vestigial figments of his baseline telepathy surging across the hairline fracture between them. He's witnessing terror and disaster. Jim doesn't notice when Spock's radiating warmth ducks away, doesn't notice the soft shift of Spock's uniform sleeve whisper over his hand. He's witnessing a carnage the likes of which his father once faced.)

The next time they touch— it's not Jim’s Spock, not really. Is it?— It's the hard press of wizened fingers against a cheek numb with cold sweat, that numbness after being hit, hit too hard, and knowing it'll smart later. Spock's fingers dig and dig into his cheeks, but then— the first time they touch is over a game of chess on the Enterprise— but, wait, they've never— a soft and so very gentle passing of wary fingers, of questing fingers— that terrible pressure is gone and Jim blinks years away in seconds. He feels hot in the frigid freeze of the ice cavern, his skin too tight, too small, as liquid heat instantly freezes and crackles under his fluttering eyelids. He swears, as he sways in the still-glass air, the soft pressure of warm hands cradling his flushed cheeks, cleansing his face of tears.

But this Spock, this old Spock, is a body's length away, standing solemnly, shoulders bowed under that indescribable thing that wracks Jim.

In an hour that exists in rushed minutes, fueled by adrenaline and a vast vast abyss of mourning, the next moments of their shared touch is in fleeting moments of staring at what hands have done to an easily overpowered human.

A quickly hidden moue of guilt at what was coercively forced.

This weight on the skin is heavy, harsher, and more burdensome than the real touch of fingers encroaching upon the skin's every nerve.

There is this weight, yet Spock stays a safe meter away, and Jim realizes he's always keeping someone between himself and Spock as they concoct a plan somewhere between half-cocked and foolhardy. A shared touch need not be physical, it seems. But Jim is not and will never be one to run from that which curdles and shrinks his sense of self. His hand meets Spock's shoulder, rounded in shame and grief, before he can even think about how a short time ago Spock's fingers were digging into his windpipe, seeking life to eradicate. Spock doesn't see this sudden action coming, he is safe and alone in a cultivated social bubble, and then that bubble is popped with all the grace of newborn le'matya running full tilt down the dunes of The Forge—

Humans touch in their sharing of the burden of grief, and this is not the Vulcan way. Here, Spock finds he doesn’t mind so much this joint shouldering of a shared grief. He is finding that grief is best supported by more than one. One who can understand these emotions, dark and indiscernible as they are to him. He’s beginning to fully comprehend what he has known for years: humans don't benefit from packing them, these emotions, deep in the subconscious, for dealing with later or never.

And then, betwixt phaser fire and the groaning metal of a rusting behemoth.

That sudden closeness, like a physical weight, a physical touch of hot skin, like the push of an open hand against the chest so close are they to each other. Or the rush of air as Jim lifts his phaser in defense of Spock's position, and the quick jog to his side, and the sudden swaying closer of Jim’s shoulder to Spock's. The stale phaser-burned air they share, as Spock turns into the curve of Jim’s shoulders.

That ship from the future, the small and bright Vulcan one, sparks an air of the incredulous Jim reads by the uptick of Spock's brow. Opting to ignore, Jim heads deeper into the future, a small port window manned by an empty battle station and the air pressing snug and gentle, an insistence that brings their booted feet closer as they clang on metal floors. A need to confess, awkward as it is true, and a brash understanding that crashes back into that confession. A seed planted breaks through the parched ground in that echo filled port window, feeling the burgeoning rays of trust warm its meager young roots.

These instances of meeting and only the air between separating, happen and happen again. When they beam back to their ship, the air is tense, hot, but lacking that agitation that marked their first meetings. Those missed glances of hand and shoulder and shirt and skin, going unnoticed.

The slight shift of science blues over a regulation black that should be command gold as they face the being responsible for drastically and catastrophically altering the only universe they yet know. The shared air as they breathe in each other’s space, a trust almost entirely organic going unnoticed as Jim glances up to Spock in supplication, and Spock answers in validation. The makings of greatness often go unseen. The makings of greatness are not always pleasant.


End file.
